


in which peter parker gets scolded at book club for wearing a binder while doing exercise

by sylveondreams



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, No Plot/Plotless, Trans Mary Jane Watson, Trans Peter Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:48:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25217266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylveondreams/pseuds/sylveondreams
Summary: There are some things that are integral to the identity of Peter Parker, aka Spider-man. First of all: he’s Spider-man. (This is a secret.) Second of all: he’s transgender, and he’s fucking proud of it. (So not a secret. Usually.)
Relationships: Peter Parker & Mary Jane Watson
Comments: 3
Kudos: 34





	in which peter parker gets scolded at book club for wearing a binder while doing exercise

**Author's Note:**

> this is by no means my best work but i did write it to recover from watching a video about j.k.rowling's stupid transphobic essay and then crying about it, so i think i can be excused

It’s a hot day in June, and Peter Parker is sticky with sweat after swinging halfway across the city to get to his engagement at a little bookstore. He’s peeled off his suit and stuffed it in his bag under his jacket and book and camera, but he’s still resigned to the fate of sticking his fingers under his binder to lift it away from his chest, through his shirt. Usually, this is surreptitious, just another weird thing a New Yorker does that no one would notice, but this afternoon at the bookstore he’s in good company. 

Peter isn’t new to the trans book club here. A few years ago he’d come to photograph an event they were having, and he’d come back almost every month since. (Exception being given, of course, for a few times he’d found himself doing Spider-man business and couldn’t make it.)

A hand splattered with dried paint offers him a paper cup full of water. Peter accepts it graciously and gulps it down as Magdalene, looking as much of an intentional mess as usual, sits down in the chair next to him, holding her own cup of water in colorful fingers. 

“You look hot,” she says. “Did you jog here?”

Peter shrugs. “Yeah.”

“Every summer we tell you not to exercise in the heat wearing your binder, and  _ yet _ …”

And yet Peter always does it anyway. Magdalene knows this, but she’s older than Aunt May and has to mother him, because that’s how it is. She’s their bookstore connection, she’s allowed. 

“I’m still saving.” 

“Not saving your  _ ribs _ .”

Mary Jane saves Peter by sitting down on his other side and leaning into the conversation, her red cloud of hair recognizable even in his peripheral vision. “He says he’ll be able to afford it in the winter.” 

There is no time of year where Peter would feel comfortable taking enough time off from being Spider-man to heal from top surgery. But he wants to do it eventually, and he can almost afford rent for his recovery time… “Hey, Mary Jane.” 

She kisses his cheek with painted lips, and Magdalene rolls her eyes. “You’d better, if it stops you fucking up your ribs.”

Peter takes the subway home with Mary Jane. Since it’s June, there are rainbow-covered ads everywhere, and they have a quiet conversation pressed up against each other in the crowded car about a guy they saw on the street who was really hot. When they separate at the corner outside their station, Mary Jane promises to text him later about planned photoshoots and kisses him gently on the forehead, which doesn’t help with the heat.

Naturally, the new guy where Peter buys his groceries thinks he’s fifteen and cards him with a large amount of suspicion, and Peter walks back onto the street with his groceries with that little disappointment. 

In his tiny apartment, Peter finally takes off his shirt and his binder and lets the air conditioning cool him down. He puts away his groceries shirtless and plugs his camera into his computer shirtless before he sees his reflection in the screen and pulls the t-shirt back over his head. 

Mary Jane texts later, when he’s idly sitting on a roof, back in the suit. The glow of his phone in his hands is bright in the dimming evening, and the cars below are still dense and honking, because this is New York and that’s just like home.

_ ‘My friend has a new line and I told her we’d be happy to model and shoot it,’ _ says the text.  _ ‘Paid of course.’ _

_ ‘I thought you said more than one?’ _ Peter can hear shouting in the distance, and that’s a cue he’s about to have to get up.

_ ‘The other one’s for me. My trans ass wants a pride photoshoot for my blog.’ _

_ ‘Any time Friday is good.’  _ Peter turns off his phone and tucks it under his suit, into his binder so it stays. It buzzes against his skin with another text as he jumps from the roof, slinging a web and swinging low over traffic. Wearing a binder while he fights isn’t safe, but neither is being a “superhero”. Magdalene would probably get it. 

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr at [sylveondreams](https://sylveondreams.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
